Sweet Decay
by ForbiddenKHfan216
Summary: An alternate version of Kingdom Hearts, rated M for possible horror scenes and ideas. An older Sora has long since lost his memories, but he seeks to find the friends he has lost. Zombie story.
1. Prologue I

**Sweet Decay**

**Prologue I**

The time of death is a clear one.

The heart stops, The lungs cease expanding, and the electricity inside of the brain slowly declines into nothing. This electricity fuels a person, makes their body move, and lets them be a human being.

The cold water on the boy's face is sweet and gentle, despite the salt that stung his eyes. He could only feel the warmth of the sun above him, feel himself drift beneath the waves, and the ice-cold scattering throughout his body.

He doesn't want to die.

He feels the aching cold spreading through his body from the bloody bite on his shoulder and he simply lets go.

As he closes his eyes, the dying teenager briefly sees the image of a girl reaching out toward him and the boy holding her inside of their boat. He sees them and he closes eyes, letting the cold spread through him and take him away. Tears trickle down his cheeks only to mix with the salt of the ocean.

Sora doesn't want to die, but he has no choice but to let go.


	2. Prologue II

**Prologue II**

Soft cries echo in the distance, a harsh contrast against the screams that had filled the night air only a few hours before.

The boy, one of three hiding safely in a neighbor's basement, wonders just how long it would take before a rescue team could come in and help them. Sora rubs his tiring eyes, wondering just how long it would take before the resurrected came in and ate them all.

He turns away from the small window, taking a peek at the pair sleeping beneath a tarp behind him. Riku and Kairi are sleeping peacefully, barely even stirring at the noises from outside. As he expected, Riku's arm is draped protectively over his friend's body, as if the older teenager was trying – even in his sleep – to protect the girl.

Sora has to turn away quickly and rub his eyes hard. The tears trickle down slowly, the warmth feeling like hot blood on his cold cheeks. It reminds him that it was very likely that the three of them were probably the last living people on the island. His tears also remind him that he had lost his mother.

"Mom..." He whispers softly to the darkness, still feeling the hard push that she had given him in order to get him out the door and into the neighbor's house. Sora closes his eyes and hears her last words again, having heard them on loop throughout the day. His own name, asked questioningly as she was hauled away from him and into the horde.

As for his dad, his dad had been out at sea when everything had happened on the main island. Maybe he was still alive. Maybe the monsters were able to pull him off of his fishing boat and devour him.

"Can't sleep?" A voice asks him quietly, making the fourteen year old flinch and turn around. friend Kairi smiles at him sleepily, rubbing her eyes as she carefully removes Riku's arm from her shoulder and gets up. "Hey, you don't have-" Sora starts to say, but the girl is already moving and heading toward him.

"I want to, silly." Kairi informs him with that same smile, a ghost of her usual mischievous one. With that, she sits down next to him on the bench beneath the window. Sora keeps looking out the window, watching for any sign of the resurrected shambling toward them. They had already eliminated all of the ones in the house, so unless any new ones walked in, they should be safe...

Kairi's fingers are cold, but a soothing kind of cold, as they slip into his. A deep, dark blush emerges on his face but instead of turning around to look at her, he keeps guarding. Sora had always had a crush on Kairi, one that had driven him crazy for years. But shyness and the fear of ruining their friendship had kept him mute for years. But he had dreamed of, _wanted_ a moment like this between them for so long...

Still, the zombies were a surprise.

He leans his head against hers as she snuggles into him and places her head just on his chest. He blushes that much harder, making her laugh softly as his heart rate speeds up. She could hear it, did she know what she was doing to him? "Sora?" Kairi asks again, her voice muffled slightly from leaning on him.

"Yeah, Kairi?" He asks before he feels her lean up and her lips on his cheek. They brush softly against his cheek, soft enough that he would have thought he was hallucinating if not for the soft noise she makes when she kisses him. If he had thought he was blushing hard before, he was on fire now. Kairi smiles shyly before cuddling back into him. "Maybe we should run away. Just the two of us." She jokes solemnly, shaking her head the moment that Sora opens his mouth to protest Riku's absence in her scenario.

Of course she wouldn't leave him behind. The words are left unsaid, but the sentiment was still there.

She smiles at him and nuzzles into him, though it wasn't for warmth. "I don't think I'm so scared anymore." Kairi says in a soft, wistful voice. She flashes a big grin, one that almost rivaled his usual one but instead of cheering him up, it makes his heart melt into a little puddle of Sora-y goo. "Maybe... You know, I was a little afraid at first, but now I'm ready. No matter where I go or what I see, I know I can always come back here. I'll always be here. Right?"

It's clear from the way Kairi is smiling that she doesn't mean back to Destiny Islands.

When he hears those words, Sora wraps his hand around Kairi's and holds it tightly. For the first time, he wishes that he didn't wear gloves everywhere. Though they had saved his life throughout the night by keeping the bites away from his hands but it would have been so nice to feel just a little more of her-

A sharp and _very_ loud moan suddenly sounds out near the house, startling the two kids into standing up and peeking through the window. A shuffling noise confirms their suspicions; one of the resurrected ones was standing right by them.

"Go wake Riku," Sora mouths to Kairi as the stench of rotting flesh wafts into the house. Despite the intensity of the odor, they only look at each other and start working to get the thing away from them. After all they had been through, it no longer makes them gag. She nods and quietly walks to the tarp, grabbing the first body part that was sticking out and yanks. Riku jolts up, rubbing his head in mild pain from her grabbing his hair.

After only briefly glancing at the serious expression on his best friend's face, Riku immediately snatches up a sword-like weapon from the folds of his tarp.

Sora and Riku nod to each other before the older boy pulls Kairi behind him and troops silently to the window. He quietly opens the latch of the window, pulling it down just far enough to stick his arm and his Way To Dawn Keyblade out of it.

For a sickening moment, Riku stays completely still as he waits for the zombie to shamble towards him.

If he makes a single noise, the monster would let out a series of low moans that would bring another dozen corpses toward them. And they would all make the moans, calling even more of their undead relatives and friends to devour them.

Riku rapidly slashes the Achilles tendon of the corpse, sending it toppling down to the ground. As it landed with a heavy thud by the window, Sora sees its gray eyes widen when it saw them and its mouth beginning to open up to scream. Kairi's hand tightens hard on his wrist as Riku stands back and thrusts the blade into the creature's mouth. With a matter of seconds, the screech that had been building in the dead throat cuts off to a soft gurgling death rattle.

"We can't stay here forever," Riku said softly, turning back to the room to look at his friends. His blue green eyes are full of pain, and Sora knows that he had recognized the body before killing it. A neighbor or maybe a family member. It is hard to tell anymore, since they were the only ones left on the island that were still alive. Riku runs his hands through his long silver hair and sighs. "We're going... we're going to run out of... water... soon enough." He stammers weakly.

All three kids know that he had just lied but neither Sora or Kairi call him out on it.

But Sora nods instead, reaches out to touch Riku on the shoulder, and smile. "Alright, then let's get out of here. How about we go to the play island?" He asks curiously. His two friends give him a bizarre look, no doubt wondering what the heck Sora was thinking.

He laughs quietly, amused by their reactions. "Well, think about it. There's water there in the springs, we can catch fish, and it's separated from this island by at least three or four miles, right? So it should be a good place to hide for a bit!" Sora explains cheerfully.

In reality, he wants to check if the three kids that normally hung out at the islands Tidus, Selphie, and Wakka were still alright. They had been having a sleepover there on the island, one where they would spend days of camping and roasting marshmallows in order to play together and strengthen their bonds for blitzball. Or at least the boys had that in mind; Selphie just loved marshmallows. If it had spread that far to that little island and those three kids were gone... then there was no way that the trio would be able to get off the islands at all.

They would be trapped there on the main island, simply because there were no other supplies in the area. There would also be no way to get them, not unless they could build a raft and head out to sea. Either way, they would starve to death.

Riku claps his hand onto Sora's shoulder and nods. "For once, I agree with your plans," He tells his friend with a slight hint of a smile. Then his face turns serious as he thinks of something. "Let's get to the docks and head off. … We're going to have to hurry though." He looks back out the window, a strange anger appearing on his face.

"Huh?" Sora asks in confusion. "Why?"

Kairi shakes her head and slips her hand back around Sora's. The movement is not unnoticed by Riku, who immediately blinks and stares hard at their intertwined hands. "Riku means," Kairi scolds patiently, ignoring the looks from the boys. "-is that these things see better in the daylight, just like we do. And there's tons of them by the docks. We... might not make it." She added with a worried quiver to her voice, making both boys want to comfort her.

Both Riku and Sora want to be comforted as well, though both of their parents are long gone.

Sora grins, though he feels like he should break down and start bawling on the floor for seeing his family being torn away from him. "Then we head out at dawn. Get everything ready and set for the boat," He says calmly, though he's shaking slightly.

Riku nods. "We're leaving this place." He repeats calmly before obediently dropping down to the floor and wrapping their few belongings in plastic to protect them. Sora helps wraps their food and the limited bottles of water into the tarp before tying it up into a tight bundle that he handed it over to Riku. He sets apart three small bundles of food to eat for dinner and passes two of them out to Kairi and Riku.

None of them speak of the danger that they might face in a few hours as they eat. None of them question whether or not they would survive their escape attempt. Sora's eyes constantly watch his friends, and his hand slips into his pocket to pull out a small pen. He doodles something on the wrapper of his dinner as they eat.

They speak quietly about what they were going to do when they got to the island. Riku comments that he was going to set up a few lines to catch fish, Kairi says something about getting some mushrooms. Sora only smiles and laughs at their comments as he writes, though he doesn't let them see what he was doing. His friends do not question it but only try to cling to the hope that they all would make it out alive.

A few hours later, two of the three are sitting the boat as it is being carried off in the current.

* * *

Kairi screams out to the boy standing on the dock even as Riku holds her back, preventing her from getting out. Sora watches as the boat drifts away and the rope that had been tying it to the dock is still tightly clenched in his hand. Tears trickle down his cheeks as he hears movement behind him on the wooden docks. He had made his choice, he had made it as soon as he realized that the monsters were about to move for them.

It had been easy to throw them both into the boat and shove it from the dock, even though Sora knows that it meant he was about to die. Sora drops the rope and looks at his best friends, knowing that this is the very last time he was ever going to see them.

"Kairi!" Sora shouts as the first rotting hand grips his shoulder. He jerks it off and runs along the edge of the dock, trying to give himself just that much more time to talk to her. She had to know, she had to know what he felt... if he died for her and for Riku, they had to know how much he loved them both...

"Kairi! Remember what you said before? I'm always with you, too. I'll come back to you. I promise!" He yells out as the first set of teeth pierces through his skin, leaving him free to scream and be yanked into the crowd. His body is temporarily invisible in the crowd of monsters, though they soon part just enough to let the two kids see what they were doing to Sora.

"Sora...!" Riku shouts as the first of the monsters tears into his friend's throat and infects him with the virus. Blood spurts out of the vein it had punctured but the boy immediately rips himself free from the creatures and runs toward the end of the dock. As he runs, he lifts his hands and starts to wave at the boat.

Even from this distance, the two kids could see the tears pouring down his face. They all knew he had a limited time before he died.

Kairi stands up in the boat, forcing herself to wave just as hard back at Sora as he ran from the monsters. "I know you will!" She screams back to him, though she doesn't hear herself say it. She could not hear herself say anything from the shock. Sora watches her for a few more minutes as she reaches out towards him, begging him to come join her in the boat. There is a satisfied look on his face as he smiles and cries a few more tears.

A few seconds later, Sora jumps into the sea and vanishes from sight.

Riku hauls Kairi back into a sitting position and he jumps into her lap and pins her down when the girl tries to jump out of the boat to join Sora in the sea. Riku rocks her gently in his arms and strokes her hair, soothing her as she sobs into his shoulder and whispers the same words over and over like a broken record.

"I know you will, I know you will..."

The older boy doesn't let his own tears fall, he only pins the grieving girl down with a hand and removes their food from the tarp. When he opens up the package, he notices one of them was completely unopened, though they had all eaten most of it last night. Riku opens it up to see a rapidly written note from the boy who had refused to eat in order to give them that much more of a chance.

_'Take care of her for me, will you?'_


	3. Prologue III

**Prologue III**

Blue eyes flicker closed, open, and then closed again.

"Is he dead?" A voice asked curiously.

"Looks like it. He's bit... he's probably been in the water for weeks now. We should drop him back in the water as soon as possible... or find somewhere to bury him." This voice is deep and solemn, as if the sight of whatever he was seeing makes him sad. The boy opens his eyes just as the first voice continues to speak.

"Poor little thing..."

He doesn't know but the voice is soft and sweet, almost like it was... "K... Kai...ri...?" The boy murmurs as the girl's hand brushes against his cheek. Her hand is cold, though he knows it should be warm. It should be warm but for some reason, so he can only feel cold. He leans into the touch anyway.

"Kairi?" The first voice demands in startled confusion.

The blue eyes open again, and for the first time, the boy is able to concentrate on the people before him. The man stares at him for a moment before placing a hand to the blade on his back. "What's your name?" He asks cautiously, taking a step back as if to provide himself with enough room to attack if necessary.

For a moment, the kid honestly couldn't remember. It was just too cold and he was too weak for him to remember. He shivers hard, even though he knows he's actually burning hot from the fever. "S..." He knows his name, he just knows he has a name...! The boy manages to move just enough to force himself to sit up and to stick his hand into his pocket.

"M... my name..." He stutters out weakly before flopping back onto the hard wooden surface he was lying on. The girl crouches down next to him and puts her hand into his pocket.

"Yuffie! What are you doing?" The man demands angrily. His blue eyes narrow on the girl's hand as she gently removes the boy's hands from his pocket and with it, a small object. The star charm glitters with the salt water that they had pulled him from and the young ninja shows it to her friend.

"He survived, Squall," Yuffie says quietly as the boy's eyes close for a second time. "He's survived a bite for more than a week... doesn't that mean...?" The voice slowly fades away, but the image of the star remains in his eyes long after he falls unconscious.

There is something familiar about it, something sad... something... he had to do... It is a simple little charm made out of seashells that had been sewn together with large, white stitches. There is a face drawn on the charm, from the little he could actually see of it. His eyesight isn't very clear and he hadn't gotten a very good look at the charm he had tried to touch, but there is something familiar... something so familiar... and so very sad...

"...His name... So...ra...?"

As he falls asleep, the boy remembers the promise he had given the little girl with the star in her hands. He remembers the boy that had held her back against the waves that had taken them both away and in his sleep, he cries for the friends he had lost.


	4. Prologue IV

**Prologue IV**

She isn't moving.

As he runs his hand on her too pale cheek, he couldn't feel any warmth. All he hears besides a soft whimper escape his throat are the soft cries of the gulls and the slap of the waves on their boat. Kairi remains completely silent.

"K... Kairi..." The words are choked out past dry and cracked lips. Riku's eyes fill with tears as he touches the tiny, still body one more time. "Kairi?" Her eyes remain closed and she remains silent even as he scoops her up and presses her to his chest. She is cradled in his arms one last time, and he sobs a few more drops of precious water into her salt-streaked red hair.

"Kairi..."

Riku freezes as the hand touches his shoulder, as the cold lips press against his ear. "Why didn't you protect her for me?" The voice demands as the stench of death slowly fills him, consumes him, and drives Riku to look behind him.

All he sees is that rotting corpse smiling at him and his gloved hands lurching forward to grab his throat. The head tilts to the side with a sickening snap, as the bones inside of his friend's neck break into that awkward angle. His friend's smile is sick. As the creature that was once his best friend speaks, its decomposing blue eyes stare straight into Riku's and slowly blink away into black liquid.

It is this liquid that streams down the monster's face as its fingers wraps nice and tight around Riku's throat.

"_I told you to protect her, Riku!"_

* * *

He let out a startled scream as he bolts straight up from his spot on the boat. Riku's soft pants fill the night air, as though nothing could penetrate the darkness except his voice. He curls up beneath the tarp that he and Kairi were using as a blanket, his legs tucked into his chest and his head on his knees. Even though he knows he shouldn't cry, so that he can preserve the water in his body, he can barely stop the tears from falling from his eyes anyway.

Kairi is still, though she continues to breathe.

Her mind is just broken, that's all.

The little girl lays still beneath the other end of the tarp, her face wet with tears that she could no longer understand. Riku moves the tarp just enough to cover her exposed shoulders completely and then he cowers beneath it. He listens to her soft breathing for a little while, listens to the way the broken little girl chokes the air down into her lungs.

She had cried herself to sleep. This was the third night she had cried herself to sleep since Sora had died. Kairi could not understand why she cried or why she was trapped in an oarless boat with Riku.

He shouldn't cry.

He should never cry, so that Kairi's mind could finally mend.

He would keep them inside forever, if only so he could let Sora's last wish come true.

With those thoughts in his head, Riku reaches out and places his hand onto Kairi's ankle, feels the heat of her body in his palm, and he holds onto that last little piece of home he had left. It is warm and even though it is a gentle warmth, it hurts him even worse than if he had gotten stabbed in the heart.

But the tears still don't fall from his eyes.

"I... promised..."


	5. Prologue V

**Prologue V**

It's warm.

The material against his cheek is roughly spun but soft to the touch, and the boy can't help but cuddle deeper into it. A word comes to mind as he buries his face into the material but he doesn't know how he knows it. Sheets. As soon as he remembers that word, he remembers a second. Bed. He was on a bed.

A bed is a comfy place, somewhere you can hide from your troubles and sleep the day away.

Had he been sleeping this whole time? The boy isn't sure. He isn't sure of anything, and he doesn't want to get up to check. He just curls his hand tightly into the soft thing and hugs it close, pressing his face deep, deep into it. If he was lucky, he would never have to get up. He would never have to wake up again.

_'Sleeping again?'_ A voice demands in his head. It is soft and insistent, calling to him even. The boy's eyes flicker open and then close again as he continued to remember. _'You lazy bum.' _

His fingers slowly loosen their grip. A voice? Who's... just whose voice was it? The voice is familiar, tauntingly familiar to the sleeping boy. He knows that voice... It whispers to him as he sleeps off the fever and it soothes him as he dreams. He remembers vague images, faces that no longer mean anything to him, and the places he had walked once upon a time in a vague dream...

The boy named Sora sleeps off his fever, dreaming of the life he had lost.

* * *

Leon, captain of the S.S Traverse Town, glances down at the crumpled piece of paper in his hand for the fifth time in as many minutes. All around him, his crew is running around, attempting to get the massive gummi-ship ready for its voyage. There are papers to shuffle; food to salt, dry, and store; tools to sort and place into toolboxes; and lots of other miscellaneous tedious things that had to be done before they shipped out. But he couldn't focus on any of them.

All he could see in his head was the small letters on the piece of paper.

It is nothing more than a name from a battered homework assignment that had been waterlogged and torn apart by the waves. But for the boy sleeping in his cabin, Leon knows that this is one of the few links to his past that he had left. Luckily for the kid, Leon realizes with a slight smirk, he was a slob.

Leon places the paper onto his desk again and looks at the folder that he was supposed to be looking at. Then he glances back down at the paper with the name written sloppily in the corner. "Sora Minami," The captain reads out to himself again, frowning one more time. "F; next time don't copy off of your friends."

A laugh emerges from his lips before he sighs softly. Leon runs a hand through his cropped brown hair before shaking his head. "Sora..." He repeats quietly. Just what had this boy suffered through? What had happened to his hometown to leave him floating away in the waves to be picked up by his ship? Had he been bitten and thrown overboard? Had he thrown himself into the water and hoped to die peacefully before succumbing to the infection and turning into one of the Resurrected?

He could still turn.

The entire crew was uneasy. The entire crew wanted the boy off of the ship. Leon knows this and he could feel the whispers behind his back as he and Yuffie nursed Sora back to health in his cabin. The men and women of Traverse Town, the town that had given its name to the ship, believed the boy to be a lost cause. Sora would only bring the infection back onto the ship and let more of them die, just like they had back in Traverse Town.

Just like they had back in Hollow Bastion.

Leon stands up abruptly, throwing the ledger off of his desk and onto the floor with a satisfying thunk. He needs to go check on the boy. After a moment, the captain glances down at the paper and scoops it up into his palm.

No, he needs to go check on Sora.

* * *

A soft hand touches his cheek, making him stir from his sleep...

He opens his eyes and for the first time, he doesn't see the world through a fevered haze. The blur that had been his world is gone. For a moment, the boy cringes away from the touch and from the sharp clarity of the small wooden room around him. Tears fall from blue eyes. He doesn't understand where he is. All he knows is that the room is dark, frighteningly dark and that there was no one in there with him.

He is alone.

He feels himself begin to shake and shake very hard. Where was he? The boy nervously licks his lips only to discover that his tongue and mouth are dry. He coughs softly but cannot bring enough saliva up to swallow. There is nothing. Tears trickle down his cheeks as he cowers beneath the blankets, too afraid to look for a glass of water.

In a world where nothing was the same, how could he have moved? How could he have dared to venture from the one safe place he knows? Out there, out beyond his bed and his sheets is a world full of monsters. A heavy throbbing suddenly jolts through his shoulder, painful with a burning ache. The boy curls up beneath his sheets and whimpers softly, clutching at the no longer infected bite with all of his might. It had only been a little while ago that it had been oozing with hot pus, painful with infection... someone had come to help him, someone had pried the dying flesh out of his shoulder and had let it heal into a deep scar.

He wishes with everything that he has as he hides beneath the sheets that that someone would come to help him again.

He has to do something... he has to... The boy blinks hard before carefully removing the sheets from his face and looking out from the safety of his bed. He has to do something...

* * *

The door is open.

Leon rips the Gunblade out of its holster, suddenly feeling his heart race about a thousand times faster. His cabin door should _not_ be open. There is only one person that had the key to his room and that person's name was Squall Leonhart. Yuffie is the only other person he could trust with the room, but that was only because she could pick the lock.

"Yuffie!" The captain shouts angrily but he goes to the door anyway, holding the blade out into the room. "You better not have gone in without my permission!" The young girl stays silent but Leon stalks toward the room carefully. He holds the blade out toward the room and flips it to its side, secretly using the reflective surface as a makeshift mirror.

A flash of movement.

Leon blinks once before taking a single step forward, focusing hard on the Gunblade's surface. He sees a slight, almost imperceptible movement behind the door. He notices for the first time that the door isn't closed all the way; it should have been flat against the wall. With a hissed curse under his breath, the Gunblade wielder drops the blade down to the floor and puts his hand to the edge of the door.

As he slowly pushes forward, he suddenly feels a movement from the other side of the door.

A flash of red steps out from behind the door and Leon stumbles forward, caught off guard from the way that the kid had slipped out. It takes him about five seconds to right himself and not fall into the doorknob but the boy is one step ahead of him. Leon looks up to him just in time to see a large silver object go straight for his head.

"Dammit!" Leon snarls as his arm automatically shoots up to protect his face, bringing the long blade with it.

With a startled yelp, the kid jumps backwards, probably to avoid the huge sword that had come his way. There is a panicked look in the boy's dark blue eyes but he remains calm, bringing his own weapon up to protect himself. As Leon swings the blade up in the air, nothing more than a scare tactic and intimidation, the boy runs forward and slams the sword down onto the blade.

The blades cross one more time, giving Leon enough time to make his last move. As the boy's weapon quivers, just one more sign of his increasing weakness, the captain of the S.S Traverse Town simply gives him a cold but somehow still friendly smirk. Sora's startled stare is just enough to make Leon laugh.

With a rapid dash forward, Leon sends his leg crashing into Sora's ankles, sweeping him off of his feet and sending him stumbling into the floor. With a heavy thunk, the kid's head smacks into the wooden floorboards of the ship. Before he could even think about getting up, Leon already had his boot pressed tightly on Sora's throat.

"... You should be in bed." Leon informs him quietly, making the kid jump and turn his gaze away from his boot and up to his face. Sora blinks a few times before relaxing. "Do... do you know me?" He asks curiously, as if he wasn't being pinned to the floor by a heavy leather boot on his neck. Leon nods once before pausing.

Did he really know this boy?

After a moment, he just shook his head. "No," Leon admits quietly. At this one word, Sora's entire hopeful persona simply deflates and the kid's entire body goes limp. Leon raises an eyebrow; it shouldn't have been so easy to get him down. But there he was, looking as if someone had kicked his puppy in front of him.

Leon couldn't help but try to give him a little bit of hope. "But I do know your name," He amends before stepping off of him. Sora immediately hops right off of the floor, practically jumping in excitement as he jumps into Leon's personal space.

"You do! You know my name, I have a name!" The kid shouts eagerly before stopping in mid-air and twirling to face Leon again. "What's my name?" He asks curiously, tilting his head in a way that makes Leon seriously consider tossing him off of the ship or getting him a dog collar.

A brief smile crosses his face as the captain places a hand on the hyperactive kid's shoulder. The way he acted, it reminds him of an old friend, one of the ones he had lost back when the monsters had invaded his home. Though the features are different and they didn't act quite the same, Leon could see just a little bit of his best friend in Sora's eyes and his big goofy smile.

Leon pats Sora's shoulder in a slow, precise way, trying not to hurt the kid too much. Sora doesn't seem to notice because the grin stays on his face and he just nods at him, clearly wanting to know who he was. There are a lot of answers that he didn't know for the kid, but he could at least give him what he could.

"Your name is Sora. … Welcome to Traverse Town."


	6. Chapter One

**Chapter One**

_There is blood on his hands._

_No matter he does, there will always be blood on his hands. The boy's fingers quiver with the palsied shake of the undead; he hears the ghostly moans escape his lips. Black, oil-like, tar-like tears escape his rotting eyes but he cannot cry out. He can see, but that is all. The boy screams at his friends to run as the silver haired boy and the girl with the shining violet-blue eyes move toward him. They are his friends, the friends he cannot remember beside the vague details of their hair and their eyes. He couldn't really remember them, he never could. He could only remember half-formed impressions, that of a strong but cocky boy that he had never quite been able to compare to and that of a sweet and tough little girl that had been able to charge alongside them no matter what they did. _

_He loved them. He did remember that. He still loves them.  
_

_Sora had always loved his friends._

_He will kill them. He always did. Just as the girl manages to reach his side and looks up at him with those beautiful eyes, he feels his fingers lunge and wrap themselves tightly around her pretty white. She screams. His fingers tighten. She claws at his hands, begging for him to let go, he could see the horrified shock in her eyes... and as she begs, he pleads alongside her for his body to listen. _

'Please, listen! Please... don't... hurt her...! Don't hurt them... don't hurt... my friends...!'_  
_

_Her throat erupts into a mass of red strings. He hears the roar of blood-fueled triumph rip through his throat even as his second friend manages to grab his hands, to begin to plead with Sora to stop attacking them.  
_

_It doesn't take long for the silver haired boy to fall, too. _

* * *

"Sora!"

"That's it! I'm gonna use a lightning attack on 'im-! Goofy, let go of me!"

He hears the scream emerging from his throat even as his body jolts up, the panicked fear of having killed his friends jetting across his body even through the deep sleep he had been in. Sora Minami stares into blank space for a moment before turning his gaze to the people watching him.

Goofy Goof, his second mate, looks over at him and carefully plops a cold water bottle into his hand. A smile crosses across the dog's face as the captain of the S.S Oathkeeper pops the cork out and starts chugging the water down. As he drinks, the twenty year old feels the friendly dog's gentle pats on his back and shoulder.

A low huff comes from his second companion, the first mate of the Oathkeeper. Donald Duck sniffs haughtily before turning around from the half-lucid captain, his wings folded neatly on his chest. Even half-asleep, Sora could see the duck shaking from the fright that he had unwittingly imposed onto his first mate. He is frightened too.

"It's been a long time..." Sora says hoarsely, flashing his friends a weak smile. He still feels his body shaking, he could still taste the peculiar taste of blood in his mouth... "It's been a long time since I've had that dream." He admits. Without thinking about it, the man reaches toward his shoulder and clutches hard at it. Even when his nails start digging into his sleeved shoulder, he couldn't stop shaking. He could still feel the scars underneath the white fabric, he could still feel the teeth burrowing into his skin...

Donald and Goofy glance at each other for a moment before plopping themselves onto his bunk and giving Sora a tight hug. A shared smile crosses their faces as the man relents into his former guardians' embrace. "I'm not fourteen anymore," Sora mutters as he wraps an arm around each of their shoulders. "I don't need babysitters again."

Goofy laughs. "Oh no, cap'n! We ain't your babysitters; we're your... your... _confidents_!" He declares with a joking shove at the man. Sora almost tumbles out of the bed and is only stopped by a quick pull of his shirt by Donald. The duck glares irritably at the dog.

"That's confid_a_nts, Goofy!" he corrects.

"Gawrsh, we can be that, too, can't we Donald?" Goofy asks curiously before lifting his hands up to protect his face.

The ill tempered duck immediately charges at him, jumping his friend and pummeling him. Sora quickly rolls out of the way of the duck and gets to his feet. He waits a moment, waiting for a moment that he could easily stop the one-sided fight. As Donald starts going for Goofy's face, he suddenly turns so that his back was to the captain. The captain snatches at the air, snapping up Donald's collar and hauling the swearing duck right off of Goofy.

"Makes you almost sad that Leon trained me so well, huh? Since I can do this?" Sora tells the infuriated Donald before shaking him, an obvious cure to start forcing him to calm down. The duck hisses something about a disrespectful youngster before shutting his mouth. He folds his wings across his chest and keeps glaring at Goofy.

The dog smiles cheerfully. "Gawrsh, thanks Sora. I almost forgot though!" He says as he thumps a loosely clenched fist into his palm. "Leon said he wanted you for somethin'. Do ya mind getting up?" With that, Goofy clambers out of bed and pauses in a thoughtful way. "Well... if you're havin' nightmares... maybe I can convince Leon to let ya sleep in?" He muses out loud, bobbing his head back and forth as he ponders.

Donald and Sora exchanges looks before the young man grins. "Let's go see the captain of the Twilight Town before he comes in here and tries to work us to death with a mop!" Sora declares in a dramatic voice, dropping his first mate as he sweeps his arms into a wide open stance. Donald spits out another curse before grabbing the captain's pajama drawstring to haul himself to his feet. He whaps the side of the man's stomach before waddling out of the room.

Sora glances back to the bunk he had been sleeping in, briefly feeling the sting of the dream hit his fingers. He curls his hands into fists before turning to the drawer by his bedside. He yanks the single drawer open and pulls out a wallet and chain, bouncing the small charm in his hand before shoving it into his shirt pocket. He feels better now. The memory of the nightmare is already fading, just as it always did. Goofy looks over at him before patting the captain on the shoulder again, reassuring him as he usually did through physical shows of affection.

As he walks out with Goofy, Sora couldn't help but have one last thought about his nightmare and the star-shaped charm he now carried. It was strange but... for some funny reason, he couldn't remember the time the charm fit perfectly in his hand. Just as he couldn't remember his nightmare, he can't remember that time anymore.

"Just when did I... get so big?" He ponders out loud, closing his eyes for a moment as he ducks his head to go under the door-frame. He briefly remembers when he was small enough to get into his cabin without hitting his head on the door... but he can't remember the time when he was still small enough to wrap his hands around that little girl.

He opens his eyes as Goofy hands him a lantern to illuminate his path through the darkened ship corridor. Maybe it was just better that way.


	7. Chapter Two

**Chapter Two**

The paper is thrust into his hands, pressed there by the scowling brunet that looks like he had just woken up. But Leon always looked like that. Sora raises a hand in salute to his former teacher, but the older man simply waves it off and plops himself down into one of his chairs. He motions for the trio to do the same.

Needing no further encouragement, Donald clambers up one of the high barstools and settles in. Sora and Goofy glance over at each other before the man folds his arms over his chest, the both of them remaining standing. "So what's all this about, Leon?" Sora asks curiously.

Leon's mouth twitches in a slight smile. "Two years ago, you wouldn't have talked to me like that," the teacher scolds in a teasing way. Sora snorts in laughter; two years ago, Leon had still been captain. "I never liked being thrown overboard," he replies honestly.

The gunblade wielder smiles a little more and nods. He points a gloved hand toward the piece of paper that he had thrust into Sora's hands. "Well, I'll get to the point. We need supplies. Twilight Town is nearby, so I figured the _captain_ of the fleet should start getting volunteers before said fleet lands," Leon takes a moment to think before continuing. "Cid also said something about making some ships for the new recruits. Since you're the only one they're willing to talk to right now, Sora, you should take them with you."

Sora nods, thinking about the groups of ghouls and monsters they had hauled out of an infested town only a few weeks before. The denizens of Halloween Town were hardy, able to survive even the most frightening of circumstances… but they themselves look remarkably close to what the zombies looked like. "With all due respect, Leon, I don't think that's a good idea. I think I should just take Sally."

Leon raises an eyebrow. "Why's that?" He asks.

"She looks the closest to normal and she'll be able to take orders well, even if Jack's not there. … Jack would be better, but he looks too much like a zombie for the Twilight Town group," the younger man explains. He leans back on his right leg, lifts his hand up to rub his messy brown locks, and grins sheepishly. "I really don't want to explain a walking, talking skeleton, even if we've been friends for years."

Donald lets out a quiet quack of laughter and Goofy chuckles.

Leon nods, a proud expression appearing in his eyes. "Alright, I'll ready a ship for all of you. Anyone else you want to take?" He asks, pulling out a small red notebook. The swordsman flips it open to a page and writes the four approved crewmembers down. "I'd suggest a few offensive crewmembers. Last I heard, there are more of the Resurrected being washed up on Twilight Town shores."

Sora scowls. Of all of the news he was supposed to get, information about more waves of zombies is the most important. Of course it had gotten to Leon first; the older crew had never accepted him as leader, not even when Leon gave him the position over the entire fleet when the group of ships numbered over a dozen. Never mind that _Sora_ was the one to bring easily twice the old crew to their ranks; never mind that Sora, Donald, the King, and Goofy were the ones to first jump onto the front lines and the last to leave the battlefields against the Resurrected.

No matter what Sora did, it seems like the entire Traverse Town crew still saw him as the weird infected kid that had been adopted by their captain.

"Beast, Aladdin, and Genie would all be good," Sora says with clenched teeth. Leon notices the anger but says nothing, choosing instead to simply write down the names. "If Cid's coming, I also want Yuffie and Aerith as back up."

"Cloud and Zack won't let you take Aerith," Goofy chimes in. The captain turns to look at him but the friendly dog just shrugs. "Since she hasn't taken the vaccine, those two won't let her out their sight." He clarifies sheepishly.

"Then Cloud and Zack are coming too. I want at least two more magic users as well. I want to cover both offensive and defensive aspects in case there's a fight." Sora commands, feeling the authority emerge from his voice for the first time in a long while. He never liked being bossy, but now he was pissed. Leon openly smiles at that, the equivalent of a huge earsplitting grin from the normally taciturn man.

"Then I say Ariel, Melody, and Belle would do just fine," Leon says as he scribbles the last of the names down. He pauses for a moment. "Should we wake up Ven, too?"

Sora nods, unfolding his arms from his chest at the mention of his friend. Ven was a more recent addition to the crew, having been picked up from an old castle in the middle of the ocean. Like Sora, he is a wielder of the Keyblade and claimed to have been trained personally by one of the last of the Masters. He was also the second of Sora's teachers.

"Ven's fine," The captain admits.

Leon nods one more time before adding the name to the list and standing up, sending his barstool scraping loudly behind him. "I'll send Yuffie to wake them all up," he promises as he hands a copy of the list over to the captain. At the angry scowl on Sora's face, he chuckles. "And I'll make sure to make room in one of the freezers for all the sea salt ice cream you'll bring home." Leon teases.

"Huh?" Sora asks, startled by the insinuation but the former fleet captain just slams a hand into his shoulder, nearly knocking him to the floor. Leon gives him a small grin as he strolls out of his office, the ledger of names resting on his shoulder.

Goofy helps Sora regained his balance and Donald let out a few chuckles as he clambers back down his stool. "What now?" The duck asks curiously, folding his wings across his chest as he waits for orders. Sora shrugs and shakes off Goofy's helpful paws, instead choosing to open up the folder of needed supplies.

"I guess we go see the Kings," he says finally.

* * *

"Ah, Sora! What a lovely day, isn't it!" A voice cries out, bony hands clapping cheerfully onto the man's shoulder as he is hauled back up onto the Oathkeeper. The skeleton grins at him as he looks up at the cloudy sky above. "Perfectly rotten and spooky, friends, what a lovely day to go ashore!"

Obviously Jack, the Pumpkin King, is sick of being cooped up on the same dinky boat.

Sora runs his hand through his mane as he stares at the suited skeleton, not sure what to tell him about the outing. He probably heard about it from one of the trick-or-treaters, the youngest of the Halloweentown group. Then again, considering that most of the monsters are immortal and didn't age, the captain could never be sure if they could be considered the youngest.

"Sorry, Jack, only Sally's coming," he says finally, giving the skeleton an apologetic smile.

Jack doesn't seem to notice it. "Ah, a lovely day… yes, so if Sally is coming along with us, Sora, then I will escort her personally!" He suddenly lowers his voice, speaking in a half-whisper to the captain. "My, what a brilliant idea you had, my friend. I need Sally's help most of all." He confides softly.

Sora grins. "Why, Jack, is that a blush I see on your skull?" He teases, giving the chipper skeleton a joking wink. As if electrocuted, Jack jumps back several feet and onto the mast, holding his arms up in a large X. "Nonsense! If anything, my skull is whitening with the sun, my boy! I look almost alive at this point!" He declares haughtily, though his smile doesn't grow any smaller.

Instead of fighting with how he couldn't go to shore without frightening half of the townsfolk, Sora reluctantly adds Jack's name to his copy of names.

"Only you and Sally then," He says as he turns to the small group of people staring at him through an open door. The denizens of Halloween Town give him their own forms of greetings. A few wave, others bring up cloaks to their arms and hiss menacingly, and still others howl viciously.

Sora simply returns a deep and formal bow, taught to him by Skeleton Jack himself.

"My, Sora," a soft voice says in approval as he straightens up. "When shall we be going?" Sally, a tattered rag doll-like creature asks him. Out of the people, or rather creatures, of Halloween Town, she is the sweetest and kindest. As if confirming his thoughts, Sally walks up to him and hands him a small bottle, a handmade potion to boost his strength.

Jack flutters back down from the mast, landing nimbly by the doll's side and taking her sewn arm gently. "Hello, Sally," He says in an almost shy voice, if the skeleton could ever be shy with his active personality. Sora grins; it seems that Jack was finally confronting his emotions about the sweet rag doll, something he and Goofy had been trying to help him with for years.

Sally smiles at him and nods in greeting. "Hello, Jack, I have your new tie with me," she says as she reaches into a pouch on her hip, removing a black length of cloth from it. She offers the bat shaped cloth shyly.

"Wonderful! Why, I love it! Thank you, Sally!" He immediately declares without even looking at it, snatching it from her hands and wrapping it immediately around his neck. The skeleton starts tying it quickly, singing Sally's praises as he dances in excitement.

Sora chokes back a laugh and sighs wistfully, amused by the proceedings. If only he could have been able to do something like that too… Instead of giving into sad thoughts, Sora just pops open the cork of his potion and gulps down the red liquid. "Alright, crew, let's get going!" The captain commands authoritatively.

The skeleton and the rag doll place their hands to their foreheads in salute, making the rest of the Halloween Town groups let out their fearsome shrieks in approval.

"To Twilight Town!" They all yell out as Jack and Sally follow Sora down below.

* * *

**To all those people who wanted the group to get to Destiny Islands already... sorry, but not yet. Soon though. I just thought it'd be nice to show Sora taking charge. I hope you liked it!**


End file.
